CHAPTER IX.

NEW YORK.

GOVERNOR COSBY'S ADMINISTRATION. CONTROVERSY WITH VAN DAM.- THE ZENGER LIBEL SUIT. — STRUGGLES OF POLITICAL PARTIES. GEORGE CLARKE, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. — THE NEGRO PLOT OF 1741. - GROWTH OF THE COLONY IN A HALF CENTURY. EARLY SETTLEMENTS ON THE MOHAWK AND SUSQUEHANNA.— THE CITY OF NEW YORK AT SEVERAL PERIODS. — KING'S COLLEGE ESTABLISHED. — POSITION OF THE COLONY BY THE MIDdle of the EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR CLINTON. THE PERPLEXITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. PREPARATIONS FOR A DOUBLE EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA. THE TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. SIR DANVERS OSBORN'S INAUGURATION DEATH.-CHIEF JUSTICE DE LANCEY SUCCEEDS AS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

Arrival of
Governor
Cosby.

AND

COLONEL COSBY, who arrived in New York in August, 1732, came, like others who had preceded him, to make a fortune from official service. He entered at once into a controversy with Van Dam, the acting Governor, demanding an equal partition of the salary and perquisites received by that gentleman in the interval between Cosby's appointment and arrival. The result was a suit in equity, in which not only all the lawyers of the colony, but most of the people, were deeply interested. The popular party sympathized with Van Dam; the aristocratic party, with the Governor. Out of this suit grew that trial of John Peter Zenger for libel, which is so distinctive a mark in the history of American jurisprudence.

The Zenger libel suit.

Zenger was the publisher of a newspaper, "The New York Weekly Journal,” — and he made it the mouth-piece of the opposition to the Governor and his supporters. It was ordered by the Council that four obnoxious numbers of the paper, together with two printed ballads which were considered libellous, be publicly burned by the common hangman, or the whipper at the pillory; and the magistrates of the city were required to preside at that ceremony. The magistrates refused, but the order to burn the papers was, nevertheless, obeyed. Zenger was afterwards arrested and brought to trial.

His counsel, at a preliminary hearing, filed objections to the legal

1736.]

THE ZENGER LIBEL SUIT.

223

ity of the warrant, and to the trial of the case before Judges De Lancey and Philipse, inasmuch as they held their places by appointment from the Crown. "You have brought it to that point," said Chief Justice De Lancey, "that either we must go from the bench or you from the bar." And the

lawyers were dismissed from the bar, the court assigning in the case before them counsel of their own choosing.

The defendant, however, engaged Mr. Andrew Hamilton, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia, to appear on his behalf. The case came before a jury. Hamilton boldly took the ground that the defence might prove the truth of the libel in justification, and that the jury were to determine both the law and the fact. The publication was acknowledged; but you will have," said

Rip Van Dam.

Hamilton, "something more to do, before you make my client a libeller; for the words themselves must be libellous, that is, false, scandalous, and seditious." "Our constitution," he said, "gives us an opportunity to prevent wrong by appealing to the people." The jury followed this reasoning, and responded to the appeal. The prisoner was acquitted; the people approved the verdict; the corporation presented Hamilton with the freedom of the city in a gold box, and when he left the town, to return home, a salute was fired in his honor. The trial gave the last blow, in public estimation, to the Exchequer Court, and objections were again raised, such as had been made. against Montgomerie, to the Governor's sitting as Chancellor.

Cosby.

Cosby died in March, 1736, soon after his defeat in this memora ble trial. Van Dam, who had given him so much trouble, Death of claimed by right to be his temporary successor as the oldest Governor member of the Council. He had, however, absented himself for some time from the meetings of that body, a majority of which were the partisans of the Governor. It was declared, moreover, that Cosby, not long before his death, had removed Van Dam from the Council, and the Board thereupon recognized George Clarke as the old

George Clarke appointed Gov

ernor.

Character of

est member, and appointed him Lieutenant-governor. The popular feeling was warmly in Van Dam's favor, and nothing was expected from his opponent but a continuation of the arbitrary and selfish policy which had made Cosby's administration so obnoxious to the people. The contest was warm and bitter; both men assumed the functions of the office, and Clarke, who held the Fort, took measures for its defence. The struggle, which seems to have risen nearly to the dignity of a rebellion, was only ended when Clarke's claim was confirmed by a commission from England. The political tranquillity of his seven years' government shows that, if there was not much to blame him for, so there was little his adminis- reason for praise. Perhaps he had less disposition than some tration. other colonial rulers to encroach upon the rights of the people; perhaps he was only wise enough to understand that the people would not tolerate encroachment. "We beg leave to be plain with. your honor, and hope you will not take it amiss," said the first Assembly he met, "that you are not to expect that we will either raise sums not fit to be raised, or put what we shall raise into the power of a Governor to misapply, if we can prevent it." They assured him further that they would only make up such deficiencies as seemed to them just; that such revenue as they thought fit to raise would be provided from year to year, and that they did not "think it convenient to do even that, until such laws are passed as we conceive necessary for the safety of the inhabitants of this colony.'

Each successive Assembly showed a similar spirit, which was not to be shaken by the remonstrances of the Governor, even when he warned one of them of "the jealousy prevailing in Great Britain that the colony wished to be emancipated from the Crown." Perhaps it was because he knew what serious ground there was for that "jealousy," that he was so careful not to try the impatience of the people by any other provocation than reproaches, and sometimes by an adjournment of the Legislature.

The Negro

During his administration, however, occurred an event which marks an era in the history of New York, as sombre with tragic Plot of 1741. interest as that given to the annals of Massachusetts by the Quaker and witchcraft persecutions of the previous century. But New York went mad in a senseless panic, and burned negroes at the stake eighty years after the last Quaker was hanged on Boston Common, and half a century after it was believed in Massachusetts that an old woman, accused of witchcraft, would drown when thrown into a pond, if she was innocent, but would float like a cork, if she was guilty, to be saved only to suffer death at the hands of the public executioner.

1741.]

THE NEGRO PLOT.

225

Its origin.

The origin of this tragedy was almost contemptible. In February, 1740-41, one Mrs. Hogg, who kept a small shop in Broad Street, was robbed of some goods and money. A few days before, she had heedlessly opened a drawer containing some silver coin, in the presence of a young sailor of the name of Wilson. This Wilson was in the habit of frequenting a low ale-house on the North River, kept by one John Hughson, a place of resort, probably, of dissolute persons of all sorts, but especially of idle servants among the negro slaves. To three of these, Cæsar, Prince, and Cuffee - they had no other names, but were known as Vaarck's Cæsar, Auboyneau's Prince, and Philipse's Cuffee to these three Wilson told how he had seen the money in Mrs. Hogg's drawer, how easily the shop could

be entered in a way he knew of, and the prize secured. On this hint, the burglary was committed; but, whether Wilson repented of his share in it, or whether he hoped to secure impunity for himself by betraying his comrades, he, a few days afterward, assured Mrs. Hogg that he had seen a square piece-of-eight, described as among the stolen coin, in the hands of Cæsar, at John Hughson's dram-shop.

Mary Bur

dence.

This evidence was confirmed by Mary Burton - an indented servant of John Hughson's, a girl of fifteen years who confessed to a neighbor that she knew who committed the rob- ton's evibery, and showed a piece of the stolen money, which she said the negro Cæsar had given her. On further examination, she implicated one "Margaret Sorubiero, alias Salingburgh, alias Kerry, commonly called Peggy, or the Newfoundland Irish beauty," a disreputable young woman of one or two and twenty, who lodged at

Hughson's house, and was reputed to be the kept mistress of Vaarck's Cæsar. Then some of the goods were found under the kitchen floor of Vaarck, the baker Cæsar's master - - to which access could be had from a low drinking-place, next door, kept by John Romme. Romme fled on this discovery, and the assumption was, that he was an

Arrest of Hughson and his family.

Fire in the fort.

accomplice in the burglary. The other persons accused, including Hughson and his wife, were arrested, Hughson acknowledging that he had received and concealed some of the stolen goods. It was a commonplace crime, and there was no lack of evidence to convict the criminals. The incident would have been soon forgotten, had not unexpected events presently given historical interest to the dram-shops of Hughson and Romme, to the negroes Cæsar, Prince, and Cuffee, and to the young white women of questionable character, Mary Burton and the Irish beauty, Peggy. A fortnight after the accused persons were committed to prison, a fire broke out in the roof of the Governor's house, within the Fort, about one o'clock in the afternoon. The house, the adjoining chapel, the barracks opposite, and the secretary's office over the gate of the fort, were all burned to the ground. The furniture of the government house and the colonial records, kept in the office of the secretary, were saved; and it was thought most fortunate that the fire occurred in the daytime, as therefore, probably, it did not spread beyond the walls of the fort. There was naturally for a few days a good deal of excitement in the town, rather, however, from the character of the buildings burned, than from the extent of the fire or any doubt about its origin. A plumber had been engaged upon the roof of the Governor's house during the morning, in soldering the leaden gutter between it and the chapel, carrying with him from place to place a furnace of hot coals. The wind was very high; the roofs of the two buildings were covered with wooden shingles; with such a concatenation of circumstances, the result was almost inevitable. At first there was no thought of any other than this obvious explanation; and again, but for subsequent events, an incident of no great moment would have soon ceased to be of the slightest interest to anybody.

Other fires

About a week afterward, also in the middle of the day, a fire broke out in the roof of Captain Warren's house near the bridge in the town. in the southwestern part of the town. Sparks from a foul chimney had caught upon old and dry shingles. It was put out with little difficulty, and there was no doubt about the cause of it while men's minds were cool.

On the East River side of the town, was an old wooden storehouse, belonging to Mr. Van Zandt. It was filled with boards and hay, and